Out of Order

I (and may you never read this):
A few weeks ago, I learned that you'd be much longer in coming. It seems that in the time it took people we depended on to do what they needed to do, other people got other things done for other families. Suddenly, there is a long list of families waiting for daughters from Ethiopia. Better that there are waiting families than waiting children (which is the case for boys, and I will get to that shortly, perhaps in another post). I'm filled with such joy every time a family announces their referral. Still, a line was forming, and we weren't on it. And our hearts ached, and our arms were empty. We've already been waiting so long to have you home. We started the process in earnest two years ago when we started the two year fund, and we've been loving you intensely all along.

I was walking in a semi-rain - the misty semi-rain that really wants to be snow - and I was lost in my own head. Someone reached out to me, and I took what she offered, without comprehension. After I crossed the street, I looked at it. It was a pro-life tract and in the middle, an image from a late term abortion. I was horrified and saddened that this was still the tactic intended to reach young women facing difficult circumstances and potentially painful decisions, and also accidentally reaching women who've already faced pain. So I crossed the street again, still not clear-thinking as I would have liked, hurt and angry and feeling like a victim. I told her, I'd almost lost my son at 23 weeks, someone dear to us was perhaps losing her child at 25 weeks as we were speaking, and I was waiting for my daughter through adoption and missing her (you!) like no one could ever imagine, and they just don't think and . . . "Bless you," she said, holding my arm. Then, nothing more.
Now how do you argue with that, even if you want to?
I cried - saddness that really wanted to be fury.

I love and miss you.